


Missing

by vaskianmountains



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Smaurent, set two months after the Akielon royal family visited Vere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:34:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28882524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaskianmountains/pseuds/vaskianmountains
Summary: It was already late into the evening when Laurent’s governess came to inform Auguste that Laurent had gone missing. Not allowing any time to be wasted, Auguste immediately sets out to find his baby brother. When he does find Laurent, he realizes that he really should have seen this coming.
Relationships: Auguste & Laurent (Captive Prince), Background Damen & Laurent (Captive Prince)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 95





	Missing

**Author's Note:**

> When I first start writing this, I thought I’d be able to wrap it up in under a thousand words and that it would just be a short ficlet I’d only post to my tumblr, but it turned out that it wanted to be three times that length, so now here it is.
> 
> Laurent is eight in this, Damen is thirteen, and if I’m getting the age difference right here, that would make Auguste twenty.
> 
> There’s a small reference to Akielon mythology in here, but it’s really just a Greek myth in disguise. Still, I didn’t actually stay particularly faithful to one specific version of the myth. I simply took what I liked and adjusted as I wanted for this fic.
> 
> I hope you’ll enjoy reading this!

It was already late into the evening when Laurent’s governess Vivienne came to Auguste’s chambers. He had already started getting ready to retire for the night, but when his guards told him that she wished to see him, he gladly granted her entrance. He didn’t even think much of the late hour as Vivienne often came to visit him at the end of the day. She knew Auguste always delighted in hearing about Laurent, especially if he hadn’t been able to spent much time with Laurent himself due to his duties as crown prince. However, when Vivienne refused to meet his eyes and kept her head bowed downwards as she entered his chambers, Auguste immediately knew that something was off, and when she knelt down to the floor and prostrated herself before him, he knew that something was very, very wrong.

“Your highness,” Vivienne said. The frailty of her voice, so very different from the strong and confident way she normally spoke, almost made Auguste wonder whether she was another woman entirely. She was barely audible when she confessed to him, “I cannot find Prince Laurent. I have looked for him everywhere, but I cannot find him.”

Auguste fell down to the floor in front of Vivienne and forced her upright. Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him and she rapidly sucked in a gulp of air through her mouth like she wasn’t sure when she’d be able to do so again. Auguste closed his eyes and tried to center himself with a deep breath of his own. When he opened his eyes again, he loosened his grip on Vivienne—he really hadn’t meant to hold her that firmly—and he looked at her with what he hoped to be a calming expression as he softly asked, “Where have you looked for Laurent?”

Vivienne swallowed. “I—” She stopped. Breathed in. Breathed out. Then started again. “When I came to say a last goodnight to Laurent and see if he was comfortable for the night, I noticed he wasn’t in bed,” she explained. “I immediately went to the guards of the royal quarters to ask if they knew whether he was still inside them, but they told me that they’d seen the young prince leave, and that he hadn’t come back yet. I first went looking for him in the librarythen. I even checked in the back where they keep the Akielon texts, since he has become so taken with their mythology ever since the Akielon royal family visited Arles, but he wasn’t there. Then, I went to the kitchens, in case he thought to try and still sneak away some sweets, but I couldn’t find him there either. I asked some of the kitchen maids who were still working late if they would search for him in the gardens, while I went to stables and the kennels myself, but none of us had any luck. And now—“ Vivienne sucked in a sharp breath again. “Now, I don’t know where else to look for him.”

Something cold settled inside of Auguste. He’d hoped that maybe Vivienne had overlooked someplace, but she had searched everywhere Auguste would have looked for Laurent himself. They would have to overturn the entire palace. Still, that would take hours, and at the end of it, they might even find that Laurent wasn’t even inside of the palace anymore at all. Auguste tried to think. There had to be some way to narrow down where Laurent had gone.

Auguste straightened himself and then helped Vivienne up from the ground as well. “Come with me to Laurent’s room,” he said. “You saw him there last. Maybe we can find some clue indicating where he went.”

If they couldn’t, Auguste was going to have to go to Mother and Father to let them know what was happening. The entire royal guard would be ordered to search the palace, and if that didn’t turn up anything, they’d be sent out into the city. If he had to, Auguste would search every single house and building in Arles himself until he found Laurent.

* * *

When they reached Laurent’s room, Auguste almost hoped that they would simply find him there, that he’d already have returned from wherever he’d disappeared off to. But of course, when he opened the door, Laurent wasn’t there.

Auguste looked around the room. At first glance, there was nothing obviously out of place. No closet thrown open. No papers or books strewn around. No bedding pushed onto the floor. Of course, if Laurent had left freely and of his own accord, as the guards Vivienne had spoken to had certainly seemed to think, there would have been no reason for his room to have been left a mess.

Auguste turned to Vivienne. “Look through Laurent’s closet,” he told her. “See if there’s any particular kind of clothing that’s missing. I’ll—“ He looked around the room again, trying to figure out where he might be able to find something. “I will look over his bed and nightstand.”

Auguste walked to the bed and sat down on it. He picked up the book laying on Laurent’s nightstand and flipped through it. It was a collection of various Akielon myths, mostly about animals and other creatures that were decidedly not human. The main text was written in Akielon, but Laurent had added Veretian notes into the margins. They were, however, translations of the Akielon passages (likely made with the help of Laurent’s tutor or one of the librarians), and not anything that might have helped Auguste to figure out where Laurent had gone. He put the book aside again and opened one of the nightstand’s drawers. Inside, there was a stack of folded papers. Auguste pulled them out, and when he looked through them, he found they were maps of various countries and regions of the continent. Not one was a note left by Laurent. Auguste sighed and put the maps back inside the drawer.

Still, something about those maps was nagging at Auguste’s mind. He quickly pulled them back out and looked through them again. Then he noticed it. There was no map of Akielos. Quickly, he checked underneath Laurent’s pillows. It was as he had thought. The letter was gone too.

Auguste knew where Laurent had gone.

He explained to Vivienne that he had figured it out, and then he told her to stay in Laurent’s room in case he returned on his own. He ordered his guards to stay with Vivienne. If the King or Queen were to come looking for Laurent, they should inform them about the current situation, but otherwise Auguste would handle that matter himself after he returned with Laurent. He’d understood why Vivienne had come to him and not his father, and he expected the news to go over much smoother if Laurent were no longer missing.

Then, Auguste set out to the stables.

* * *

Auguste found that Laurent’s pony was still in her stall. However, that didn’t necessarily mean that Laurent would have gone to Akielos walking. If Laurent had been smart—and Laurent was smart—he would have brought money with him for food. He might very well also have thought to bring enough money with him for a ride on a wagon. There would probably still have been a few leaving the city by the time he left.

Auguste didn’t take his own horse with him to go after Laurent. It would take some time to saddle him, and as the stable hands always made sure there was at least one horse saddled at all hours in case of emergencies, that time would be a waste. The horse Auguste took instead was a beautiful blue roan mare, and when he mounted her, he knew she’d keep steady as they went after Laurent.

He rode her out of the stables and to the palace gates. Two men were standing guard there, one middle aged, and the other one only a few years older than Auguste himself.

“Has Prince Laurent travelled past you?” Auguste asked them. It was mostly a useless question, as Auguste already knew that Laurent must have left the palace, but there was a slight chance he had found a different way out of it than through the gates.

“No, your highness,” answered the older guard, while the younger one was too busy looking at his own boots.

“But has he been here?” Auguste pressed.

The same guard shook his head.

“You are certain?” Auguste himself was certain that part of the reason why Laurent would have waited until late intothe evening would have been that the night guard was much less familiar with him than the day guard and would have a harder time recognizing him.

“Yes, your highness, I am certain he hasn’t come to the gate since I came on duty after dinner.”

Auguste turned to the other guard. “And you? Are you certain too?”

“Well,” he said, still not able to look at Auguste, “There was a young boy who left the palace maybe a little over an hour ago, only just in time before the gate was closed for the night. I didn’t think he was the little Prince Laurent, but...”

“That wasn’t the prince!” the first guard said. “He was wearing simple clothing and a dirty cap, said his name was Charls and that he had business in the city. He must have been some errand boy or servant’s son. Certainly not the prince.”

The younger guard shrugged. “I thought the same when I saw him, but he was blond and about the same age as the prince.”

Auguste had heard enough. Laurent had always liked disguises, and he had gotten along well enough with a cloth merchant named Charls who had visited the palace last month and who had been charmed by Laurent’s flair for the dramatic. He ordered the guards to open the gate for him, and rode out into the city. He knew Father was going to have his head for leaving the palace on his own without taking a guard with him, but Father was already going to have his head for not even informing him that Laurent was gone, so it mattered very little to Auguste.

He rode through Arles in a medium trot. He was itching to go faster, but if he did, he wouldn’t be able to make out the people walking in the shadows of buildings clearly enough to be certain Laurent wasn’t among them. By the time he reached the gates of the city, however, he hadn’t found Laurent yet. He didn’t bother asking the guards stationed here if they’d seen their youngest prince leave the city; they’d be even less likely to have recognized him than the guards back at the palace. He considered ordering them to close the gate, or at least not let any children under the age of ten out of the city until he returned, but that would likely cause more commotion than it would be worth. Arles was a busy city, and its gates, unlike those of the palace, didn’t normally close at night and allowed traffic to come through at every hour. Besides, if Laurent hadn’t immediately left the city, he’d most likely wait until morning to do so anyway.

So, Auguste rode through the gates without stopping. When he was out on the open road, he urged his horse into an extended canter. He’d been out of Arles for almost twenty minutes, when a little further up the road, Auguste saw a boy riding a—was that a mule? He recalled when two days ago there had been a commotion at the stables about a mule having gone missing. He briefly wondered how Laurent had managed that without anyone noticing, but it was a matter that could be dealt with later, so he shook it from his head and urged his horse to go faster. When he’d reached Laurent, he made his horse slow down again and pulled up to a halt in front of the mule.

“Laurent!” Auguste said.

Laurent’s eyes widened, and he quickly lowered his head. “Milord,” he said, “I’m afraid you must be mistaken.”

Auguste knew he should be admonishing Laurent. He knew he should be angry with him for having run off, but he was simply happy to have found him and couldn’t help but grin now. “No,” he said, “I am not mistaken.”

Laurent looked up at him, a pout on his lips.

Auguste laughed. “See? That’s the exact same way my little brother looked at me a few weeks ago when I told him he wasn’t allowed to sleep in the kennels with the new puppies. Now, would you care to tell me what you are doing out here?”

Laurent looked out down the road, and Auguste could see him think. When he reached a decision, he turned back to Auguste. With his shoulders squared and his head held high, he mustered up as much authority as an eight year old could, and said, “I am going to Akielos to visit Damen.”

“And that was so important you had to leave late into the evening without letting anyone know?” Auguste asked.

“But if I had told you, then you wouldn’t have let me go!” Laurent said. “You would have made me wait for who knows how long until you and Father and Mother would have been able to visit Akielos as well.”

When the Akielon royal delegation had left Vere a little over two months ago, Laurent had asked Damen if there would be a time when he’d come to visit again. Damen had told him that he was sure there would be, but that maybe Laurent could also come to visit him in Akielos sometime. Afterwards, Laurent had immediately asked Father and Mother when they could go to Akielos. They had explained that eventually they might pay a diplomatic visit to the Akielon royal family, but that it wouldn’t be for quite a while yet. Laurent had nodded and been satisfied enough with the answer. However, when he had received his first letter from Damen about two weeks ago (which he had kept underneath his pillow for safekeeping afterwards), Laurent had asked them again, and this time that same answer hadn’t satisfied him one bit. He had begged Auguste and Mother for days if they couldn’t visit Akielos any earlier. He had even asked Father, although not near as incessantly. But then he had stopped. They’d thought he had finally understood why they couldn’t go now, but evidently the real reason had been that he’d simply made his own plans. Really, they should’ve expected something like this; it wasn’t like Laurent at all to so abruptly drop a subject he was so passionate about.

Auguste dismounted from his horse, and walked over to Laurent. “But don’t you know how worried Vivienne and I were when we suddenly found out you were missing? And you’re lucky that I figured out where you went so quickly. Otherwise, I’d have had to tell Father you were gone, and you know he wouldn’t have been happy with that.”

“I’m sorry,” Laurent said. “I didn’t think about you getting worried. I just really wanted to visit Damen. He told me that—Auguste?” Laurent interrupted himself. “You remember who Arion is, right?”

“Yes, I do,” Auguste said.

When Damen had visited Arles, he had gone riding with Auguste and Laurent. As they’d been riding down the forest paths, Laurent had sang his pony’s praises to Damen and boasted about how fast she was. Damen had suggested they race, so he’d be able to see how fast she really was and Laurent had happily accepted the challenge. All three of them had lined up next to each other on one of the wider paths, and then they’d been off in a gallop. As usual, Auguste had let Laurent win from him. Damen, however, hadn’t.

Laurent had tried to keep up a brave face, he had, but the tears in his eyes had been clear to both Damenand Auguste.

“You were right, Laurent,” Damen had tried. “You’re pony really is very fast. You almost won from me with her. It was very close.”

It hadn’t helped. With a thick voice Laurent had said, “She still wasn’t as fast as your horse.”

“No, but...” Damen had looked at Auguste for help. He was thirteen years old, and thought himself ready to grow into manhood, but it had been clear that being faced with a child on the brink of crying had left him feeling helpless.

Auguste had simply looked back at Damen. If it would really have come to crying, he’d have stepped in to help calm Laurent down, but he had known that right then it would be better if Damen were the one to solve this.

Damen had taken a deep breath before turning back to Laurent again, and had asked him, “Do you know the myth of Arion?”

Laurent loved stories, and with that question Auguste had known that Laurent would be alright. In fact, it had turned out to be the beginning of Laurent falling in love with Akielon mythology, and afterwards, he’d started following Damen around, demanding he told him of even more myths.

Right now, Auguste repeated what Damen had told them about Arion to show Laurent he really remembered. “Arion was born from the west wind, and he was just as fast. Because of his speed, he was able to save one of the old Akielon kings in battle, while all others perished. To thank Arion for saving him, the Akielon king turned to the gods and asked them to make Arion immortal, a wish the gods granted him. According to legend, Arion is said to still gallop across the coastline of Ios to this day. However, Damen knows it to not just be legend but fact, as it was Arion who sired his own horse.”

Laurent was smiling again as Auguste recounted the story. “Yes,” he said, “and that’s why his horse was able to beat my pony, because he’s descended from the fastest horse in the whole world. Damen told me in his letter that when I come to visit him, we could try to find Arion.”

“And that couldn’t wait until we’d visit Akielos together?” Auguste asked.

And there it was again, Laurent’s lips pressed into a pout. “But I wanted to visit Damen now! And he said that I could come whenever I wanted to, that I just needed to let him know and he’d make sure they’d have rooms prepared for me.”

“I take it you’ve already sent word to him then?”

“Yes!” A smile blossomed onto Laurent’s face again. “Last week, when Vivienne took me out into the city, I sent my letter to Damen on the mail, so now I’ll have to go! He’s already expecting me.”

Vivienne might just faint if she heard that she’d unwittingly been a part of Laurent’s plan. “We can still sent Damen another letter,” Auguste said. “I’m sure he’ll understand if you explain that you won’t be able to come after all, because your older brother simply can’t miss you for that long.” Although, it occurred to Auguste, Laurent might not even have to sent Damen an explanation at all for why he wasn’t coming to visit. If he’d sent his letter by regular mail, they’d still be able to intercept it before it even left Vere.

“I wouldn’t be staying in Akielos for that long,” Laurent tried. “I’m sure you’d be fine without me for a few weeks.”

Auguste smiled fondly and he shook his head. It would take Laurent a few weeks to even get to Akielos. He looked at Laurent closely then. He was fairly certain Laurent did understand that Auguste wasn’t going to let him go to Akielos, but he still kept his seat in his mule’s saddle, and hope still shone in his eyes.

“Come on down,” Auguste told Laurent, and he helped him dismount. When Laurent was standing down firmly on the ground, Auguste knelt down in front of him. Putting some indignation into his voice for effect, he asked, “You really think I’d be fine without you? Because I don’t think I would be. After all, if you’re not here, then who would I go riding with? And when the kitchens serve fruit pie for desert, who would be there to eat it for me, so I won’t have to disappoint the cooks because they’ll inevitably put strawberries in it? And after I’ve trained with the guards, who would remind me that I need to take a bath? If you’re not there, I might forget and stink up the whole palace! But even more importantly,” Auguste continued, softening his voice, “who would be there when I just really need a hug from my little brother?”

Laurent had looked ready to protest when Auguste started, but now he was quiet.

Auguste opened his arms in invitation. “I think I could really use one of those hugs right now in fact.”

Laurent let himself be wrapped in Auguste’s arms, and he put his own around Auguste’s neck. “Maybe I could visit Damen some other time and stay in Vere with you for now.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you liked this! I love comments and kudos. They always brighten my day 💖
> 
> I’m on tumblr [@vaskianmountains](https://vaskianmountains.tumblr.com/)


End file.
